Speaking Wednesday to his weekly general audience in the Vatican, Pope Francis again voiced his distress over the situation in “tormented” Ukraine, just as Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the specter of nuclear war.
“I would like to mention the terrible situation in tormented Ukraine,” the pontiff began. He noted that Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner, is currently in Odesa as Francis’ envoy to the country. This week Krajewski came under gunfire as he brought food and other humanitarian aid to Ukrainians.
“Yesterday he telephoned me,” Francis recounted. “He told me about the pain of this people, the savagery, the monstrosities, the tortured corpses they find. Let us unite ourselves to this people who are so noble and martyred,” he concluded.
There will be a whole lot more “martyrs” if Putin unleashes nuclear weapons against Ukraine and its Western supporters like the United States.